Methods have been proposed in which medical equipment is managed in medical centers by use of, for example, barcodes and IC tags.
For example, a medical management system is described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2003-16198 in which barcodes are directly attached to the equipment for use in medical centers and the packs storing the equipment. This system requires the reading of barcodes by bringing an optical reader called a barcode reader close to each barcode, thereby manually reading information stored in each barcode.
Another surgical products management system is described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-179223 in which surgical products each attached with an IC tag are put on a cart, and the cart is passed through a reading gate before and after each surgical operation to gather the information about products used (or taken off from the cart) in each surgical operation. Although this system does not require the manual operation of the card reader, it is necessary with this system to pass each cart loaded with surgery products through a dedicated gate before and after each surgical operation to identify the surgical products used in a particular surgical operation on the basis of the difference in product information before and after the operation.
On the other hand, systems supporting transactions between medical centers and medical products sales companies by use of barcodes and IC tags are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-119577. The system described in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-119577 is associated with a system for managing medical products such as catheters, in which repository entering/dispatching management is executed through a storage having a door connected to a computer via a scanner with an antenna arranged inside. In this system, when products are entered in the repository, products information is manually entered through an input device and control labels based on ID tag are attached to products. When products have been dispatched from the repository with radio waves transmitted by closing the door, the ID tag information of the products left in the repository is gathered to be matched with the repository entry information, thereby obtaining repository dispatching information. On the basis of the obtained repository dispatching information, order placing information is automatically transmitted to suppliers.